LTC carriers giveth, and they also taketh away.(Voluntary)

Byline: Robert L. Whiddon

Experts say that the long-term care insurance market will remain terra infirma for benefit brokers and other policy purveyors as carriers introduce new products and modify existing programs.

"We don't have any other option there," David Hillelsohn, brokerage manager for Reston, Va.'s Haslett Management Group, says in response to some zigging and zagging the carriers are doing in the areas of underwriting questions and participation requirements. Sure, some changes look better to the benefit broker than others, but Hillelsohn's point is that it's all good if it helps the industry find some stability.

"We have to convince the benefit adviser and the employers that that is what's necessary to create stability in our product line," he says.

Some of the changes won't require much convincing. The participation requirements are one such example.

"We are seeing companies that at one point are at 10 lives then they go to three, then they end up back at seven," Hillelsohn says. "It's not just in a single direction. We find that this is something that they are actively managing to try and get it right."

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